Handcuffs and Heart-to-Hearts
by Snapdragon83
Summary: Jane and Kurt. Handcuffed together. Need I say more?


I do not own Blindspot or its characters.

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 **A/N: My mom passed away unexpectedly last night, so I'm not sure when I'll be updating my stories again. I had this one already written, so I decided to go ahead and share it. Enjoy! And I would appreciate your feedback.**

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"This is all your fault," Jane hissed at Kurt as she kicked at an empty paint can in the dingy old supply room of the broken-down warehouse they were currently locked in. She would have liked to have put some distance between them, would have loved to have scaled the shelves and escaped through the air duct above them, abandoning him to his fate, but she couldn't for one very simple but unfortunate reason.

They were handcuffed together.

And it was all his fault.

"My fault!" Kurt spat back. "Your tattoos led us here, and you insisted on coming without waiting for Reade and Zapata to return from the field for backup. How does that make it my fault?"

"You were the one who let the bad guy get the drop on you," Jane pointed out venomously. "I would never have had to surrender my weapon if you hadn't allowed him to put a gun to your head." A sight which had terrified her more than she cared to admit and caused her not to fight back when his accomplice slapped the handcuffs on them. "And if you hadn't forgotten your handcuff key at the office, we would already be out of this mess." Or if they had trusted her enough to let her carry one. "And come to think of it, _Assistant Director_ Weller . . ."

" _Enough!"_ Kurt bellowed. She flinched, and he softened his tone. "I'm sorry, Jane. All right? You're right. I am the boss, and I should have put my foot down on this plan of yours." He'd been so terrified that she would follow through on her threat to go it alone that he hadn't been thinking straight. Which was why his handcuff key was back at the office. And why, since she was already halfway to the elevator, he hadn't assigned another pair of agents to accompany them.

Which sequence of unfortunate events had landed them in their current predicament.

Kurt sighed as he glanced around their surroundings, trying to regain some perspective. It had been a rocky couple of months since Jane's return to the team, and though he still harbored his fair share of anger against her, in his more honest moments, he could acknowledge that she had just as much right to her grudge against them. Neither of them had intended to hurt the other, but that seemed to be all they did these days.

And he was growing heartily sick of it.

He sighed again as he looked back at Jane. "Why don't we take a seat?" The bad guys had taken their cell phones, so it would be some time before they were missed, and they had already unsuccessfully explored every possible avenue for escape. There was no recourse available to them but to wait for Patterson to dispatch Reade and Zapata to their location, and they might as well be comfortable while they waited.

Well, as comfortable as two people who despised one another could be handcuffed to the other.

"Fine," Jane assented grudgingly as she slid down the wall with him. She was growing rather tired of standing, but being this close to Kurt and unable—and unwilling—to lean up against him, to take advantage of the comfort he had once represented to her, was a worse torture than any the CIA had dished out in her three months with them. She rested her free arm on her knees, careful not to let her chained hand touch his, and stared straight ahead.

Kurt endured the uncomfortable stillness as long as he could. It was clear she was prepared to sit here in silence for as long as it took, and he knew he should be as well, but . . . "Aren't you tired of this, Jane?"

Jane bit back the sarcastic retort that automatically sprang to her lips. Truthfully, their current predicament _was_ more her fault than his, and she didn't want to escalate the situation any more. "Tired of what?" She didn't think he was talking about the ass-numbing boredom of their present position; they hadn't been sitting long enough for that to really take hold.

"Of this . . . friction between us," Kurt told her. "Of . . . of dreading coming in to work every day because you know all you have to look forward to is more hostility and suspicion. Don't you think maybe . . . maybe it's time we buried the hatchet?"

Oh, how she wished it were that easy. "And how do we do that, Kurt?" Jane asked wearily. "You said yourself there was no making this right." And as much as she hadn't wanted to accept it, he'd been right. No matter what she did to stop her former organization, Mayfair—his boss, his mentor, and a woman who had been nothing but kind to her—would still be dead. She couldn't expect him to forgive her for that. She didn't know how to forgive _herself_ for that.

"Maybe not," Kurt replied, "but we won't know unless we try. And as for how we do that . . ." He shifted to face her. "I think we start by being honest with one another."

Jane sucked in a breath. "You want to know what Mayfair said to me the night she died." It wasn't the first time he had asked her, but it was the first time they had been alone when he'd done so, the first time she thought she might be disposed to answer him. She hadn't want to bare something so personal and painful to the team as a whole but Kurt . . . Kurt deserved to know the truth. And it wasn't as if it would change anything. But there needed to be a quid pro quo. "And what do I get in return?"

"What do you want?" Kurt asked her.

What _did_ she want? Jane paused to consider the question. She wanted . . . she wanted Mayfair to still be alive. She wanted to have gotten to go out for that drink with him. She wanted to go back in time and run back into his arms the night Oscar first made contact, tell him the truth before everything could go to hell.

Most of all, she wanted to hear him tell her that he believed she was a good person just once more.

She didn't want anything that he could—or _would_ —give her. "Nothing," she said finally, and watched his shoulders slump in defeat. She forced herself to meet his gaze as she spoke her next words. "She told me . . . she told me she wouldn't let me hurt her team. She tried . . . she tried to shoot me, but I got the gun away. Then she . . . her last words were that she wished she could be there to see your face when you found out what I really was."

She drew in a shuddering breath as she relived that moment, turning her head away before he could process her words so that she wouldn't have to see that same disgust on his face now, and resting her cheek against the rough fabric of her jeans. She'd thought she was all cried out, but to her dismay, she felt tears begin to soak through the material and her shoulders shook as she tried to rein in her emotions. "I'm sorry," she said, not sure if she was apologizing for getting Mayfair killed or breaking down in front of him. Or both. "I'm so very, very . . ."

"Jane," Kurt whispered as the sobs choked out her final word, feeling tears begin to roll down his own cheeks as he pulled her to him. She resisted at first, stiff as a board in his embrace, but he began rubbing her back soothingly with his free hand and gradually she melted into it.

"I know," he murmured to her over and over until her cries quieted and she began listening, finally admitting to her—and himself—what he'd known all along but been too stubborn to acknowledge. "I know you didn't want Mayfair to die. I know you never meant to hurt anyone. I've always known that, Jane. I just—" He had been so wrapped up in his own pain that he had been incapable of reaching out to anyone else in theirs. _Especially_ her. "I'm sorry too."

"For what?" Jane asked slightly bitterly, stiffening once more before pulling away. "I targeted you, befriended you, and betrayed you. No matter that this me didn't remember that or intend any harm, you still lost a woman you cared about. I deserved everything I got, right?" At least according to Zapata.

"Tasha didn't mean that," Kurt said soothingly. "She shouldn't have said it, but she was still upset. The truth is . . . the truth is, we lost _two_ women we all cared about when this went down. You hadn't been a case to any of us for a very long time, Jane."

Jane laughed humorlessly. "If I was more than just a case to you, Kurt, you would have let me explain instead of all but handing me over to the CIA to be _tortured_ for three months. The truth is, if I hadn't managed to escape, I'd still be in that black site—or dead. If you'd ever cared for me at all, you would have listened to me. After all the lives we saved together—including one another's—I think I deserved that much."

"You're right about that," Kurt said evenly, "but you're wrong that I didn't— _don't_ —care. If I'd had any idea the CIA had taken custody of you, I would have moved heaven and earth to get you away from them. I never wanted a hair on your head to be harmed, Jane. And it's _because_ you were more than a case to me that I reacted the way I did. If I hadn't been so emotionally involved, I would have behaved much more professionally. I would have listened. I _should_ have listened." He would regret that lapse in judgment for the rest of his life. Just as she clearly would hers. They had both made mistakes, but he would like to think that neither was unforgiveable, no matter how tragic. "Whether you believe me or not, I truly am sorry, Jane."

"I believe you, Kurt," Jane said after a long moment, leaning back against the wall, wishing she hadn't been so hasty in leaving the shelter of Kurt's arms. That had been the safest she had felt in . . . well, since the last time she'd been in them. And knowing that he would have done everything in his power to rescue her . . . she felt the ball of ice that had been encasing her heart begin to thaw slightly. "I'm just not sure where we go from here."

Borden's office would probably be a good place to start. But they could discuss that later. "You still haven't told me what you want," Kurt pointed out. Not for a second did he believe she truly wanted nothing, or she wouldn't have asked. "Come on, Jane. You gave me something; now it's my turn. There must be something you'd like to know."

"No," Jane said hesitantly, "there's nothing I'd like to _know._ But . . ." She stopped herself, certain that what she wanted was too much to ask.

"What is it?" Kurt coaxed. "Do you need my help with something? You can tell me, Jane."

"Well," Jane said after another long pause, "I do seem to recall that you owe me a drink—or two—and I hate going out alone." She felt alone too much as it was—even when she was in a roomful of agents who had once been her friends. One of whom was him. "If—oh, forget it; it was a stupid idea."

"Not at all," Kurt said. "Never let it be said that I don't pay my debts. Besides, there's nothing worse than a beautiful woman drinking alone."

Jane blushed, and she glanced over at him just in time to see Kurt's expression turn sheepish. She wisely chose to leave the comment alone and shifted against the wall in an attempt to maneuver herself into a more comfortable position.

"Here," Kurt said, tugging her back over to him until her torso lay across his chest, her head on his opposite shoulder. "I've been told I make a pretty good pillow in a pinch. Rest, Jane. You don't look like you've been getting enough sleep lately."

"Neither do you," Jane pointed out but her eyelids were already drifting closed. Whichever of his girlfriends had told Kurt that was right on the money, or nearly so. He made a pretty good pillow, period, not just in a pinch.

Kurt lost the battle with sleep shortly after Jane did, her even breathing lulling him into slumber as well, his chin resting atop her head, his arm reflexively tightening around her middle to pull her even closer as he drifted off.

Reade and Zapata found them that way, close to two hours later, the pair so deeply asleep that neither of them had heard their names being shouted or the door to their makeshift prison being opened. "Stop," Tasha hissed when Reade would have gone over to awaken them, pulling out her phone to take a quick shot.

Reade shook his head at her. "I thought you were mad at Jane?"

"I am," Tasha said. "Or I was. But I can't stay angry forever, and I know she never meant to hurt us. Besides, it's obvious that she and Weller have made up, and it's career suicide to feel that way about your boss's future girlfriend."

"Is that so, Zapata?" Kurt asked dryly, menacingly, as he opened his eyes. The effect was somewhat spoiled, however, as he glanced tenderly down at a still-sleeping Jane.

Tasha grinned unrepentantly. "Yep. I give the two of you three months tops before you're officially a couple. What do you say, Reade?" she asked, turning to him. "Care to make a friendly wager?"

"Sorry," Reade said, holding his hands up in a 'no way' gesture, "but personally, I think it's even bigger career suicide to be betting on your boss's love life."

"Very wise," Kurt said to Reade before training his gaze on Zapata. "Besides, this is one bet that _I'm_ going to be taking. Since you've clearly reneged on your promise to lay off _all_ forms of gambling."

Tasha had just opened her mouth to protest that he had an unfair advantage, that he could influence the outcome of their wager, but she shut it with a snap. "Sorry, Weller," she said. "Old habits die hard, you know."

Kurt smiled coolly at her. "Well, perhaps losing this bet will serve as a reminder then."

Tasha shrugged her acquiescence, knowing she had messed up and relieved to be getting off so lightly. And on that day four months later when Kurt finally got around to asking Jane to officially be his girl, she paid up with more grace than any of them could ever remember her displaying.

Kurt used the money to buy Jane a gold necklace with tiny handcuffs and a key with a heart on the handle to commemorate the new starting point of their relationship.

The next day the picture Zapata had taken of them in that supply room appeared in a frame on his desk.

It remained there until he replaced it with their wedding photo.


End file.
